The Judge, on again taking his seat, said to the Counsel for the defence, “I am sorry, sir, your question should have been so received, but you must remember the spectators are human, and that the jury and myself are not free from infirmity. We are, however, quite impartial.” The Counsel resumed. Now that this indecent laughter is over, tell me, sir, do you not know that Lord Bacon was the author of the plays contained in the folio volume? I do not know it, and never until now have I heard a doubt cast upon the authorship of Shakespeare. Did you never have any communication from Lord Bacon in respect of the publishing the folio volume? Never. I never received a paper of any kind from him, nor did I communicate any portion of the manuscript to him. Did not Mr. Benjamin Jonson bring you the manuscripts, or some of them, from which you printed? “My lord, my lord!” said Jonson. “Pray be quiet, Mr. Jonson, you will have your turn directly,” said the Judge. He did not, nor did he touch any sheet of them. As I have told you, I never communicated with him until I spoke to him about writing some lines for the portrait. Did not Mr. Jonson write the Dedication or Preface? He wrote neither. Heminge and Condell wrote the Dedication, and the Address to the Readers they composed in consultation with myself. Did you not receive money from some one in order to induce you to print the folio? I did not. I looked to the sale, and the sale only, to recoup myself and my co-adventurers. _Re-examined._—I myself never touched the manuscripts, nor added a line to them. After they were in my possession, Heminge and Condell never, to my knowledge, altered the manuscripts, nor did any one else. I could, if necessary, have written a Dedication and the Address to the Readers. I wrote a work entitled “A Hospital for Incurable Fools.” I hope some day such hospital will be founded. _The Shakespeare-Bacon Controversy; A Report of The Trial of an Issue in Westminster Hall, 20 June 1627. Read in the Inner Temple Hall, Thursday, May the 29th, 1902_, by William Willis, Treasurer of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, pp. 15-16. This extract is taken from an account of an imaginary suit in connection with the administration of Shakespeare’s estate, to determine whether the testator was the author of the plays published under the name of William Shakespeare in the folio volume of 1623. * * * * *